True happiness comes from a sense of inner peace and contentment, which in turn must be achieved through cultivation of altruism, of love, of compassion.

Wisdom arises when you see the true characteristics of phenomena through direct experience.

Even if you speak of 'understanding,' this understanding is not a matter of knowledge. It is what fills the entire body and mind.

To live – is that not enough? To love – is that not everything?

The art of living... is neither careless drifting on the one hand nor fearful clinging to the past on the other. It consists in being sensitive to each moment, in regarding it as utterly new and unique, in having the mind open and wholly receptive.

The greatest achievement is selflessness. The greatest worth is self-mastery.

The most important point is to accept yourself and stand on your two feet.

Meditation is like catching a fish. If you try to catch it quickly, you'll miss it. If you have patience and know how to wait, the fish will come.

When we see the nature of the mind, we see that we are not our thoughts.

When you see forms or hear sounds fully engaging body-and-mind, you intuit dharma intimately.

Loving-kindness is not something we need to manufacture. It's a natural expression of our awakened nature.

The technique of self-observation is the technique of observing the reality about oneself at the experiential level.

The Buddha's teaching is not a philosophy or a religion; it is a method of practice.

The most important things in our practice are our physical posture and our way of breathing.

Mindfulness helps us get better at seeing the difference between what's happening and the stories we tell ourselves about what's happening.

Awareness is the basis, or what you might call the "support," of the mind. It is steady and unchanging, like the pole to which the flag of ordinary consciousness is attached.

The practice of Zen is forgetting the self in the act of uniting with something.

My religion is to live and die without regret.

The key to transformation is not to fight with our experience but to open to it with awareness.

Enlightenment is intimacy with all things.

Peace requires us to surrender our illusions of control.

Should you desire the great tranquility, prepare to sweat white beads.

Meditation is not about trying to change ourselves. Meditation is about being aware of what is.

Remember that sometimes not getting what you want is a wonderful stroke of luck.

The yogi's joy is in the solitude of mountains, where all distractions naturally dissolve into emptiness.

The whole path of mindfulness is about letting go. We let go of our attachment to our views, our attachment to our opinions, our attachment to our ideas.

In my youth I studied, in my prime I practiced, now all my doubts are cleared.

We do not "come into" this world; we come out of it, as leaves from a tree.

The past is just a memory. The future is just a dream. Be here now.

Should a person do good, let him do it again and again. Let him find pleasure therein, for blissful is the accumulation of good.

There are only two mistakes one can make along the road to truth; not going all the way, and not starting.

The mind is everything. What you think, you become.

The four foundations of mindfulness are not separate practices but different aspects of the same practice of clear awareness.